Psalms 38:15

38:15 Yet ¹  I wait for you, O Lord!

You will respond, O Lord, my God!

Psalms 119:81

כ (Kaf)

119:81 I desperately long for ²  your deliverance.

I find hope in your word.

Psalms 119:166

119:166 I hope for your deliverance, O Lord,

and I obey ³  your commands.

Job 13:15

13:15 Even if he slays me, I will hope in him; ⁴ 

I will surely ⁵  defend ⁶  my ways to his face!

Romans 15:13

15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, ⁷  so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[38:15]  ¹ tn Or perhaps “surely.”

[119:81]  ² tn Heb “my soul pines for.” See Ps 84:2.

[119:166]  ³ tn Heb “do.”

[13:15]  ⁴ tn There is a textual difficulty here that factors into the interpretation of the verse. The Kethib is לֹא (lo’, “not”), but the Qere is לוֹ (lo, “to him”). The RSV takes the former: “Behold, he will slay me, I have no hope.” The NIV takes it as “though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” Job is looking ahead to death, which is not an evil thing to him. The point of the verse is that he is willing to challenge God at the risk of his life; and if God slays him, he is still confident that he will be vindicated – as he says later in this chapter. Other suggestions are not compelling. E. Dhorme (Job, 187) makes a slight change of אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel, “I will hope”) to אַחִיל (’akhil, “I will [not] tremble”). A. B. Davidson (Job, 98) retains the MT, but interprets the verb more in line with its use in the book: “I will not wait” (cf. NLT).

[13:15]  ⁵ tn On אַךְ (’akh, “surely”) see GKC 483 §153 on intensive clauses.

[13:15]  ⁶ tn The verb once again is יָכָה (yakhah, in the Hiphil, “argue a case, plead, defend, contest”). But because the word usually means “accuse” rather than “defend,” I. L. Seeligmann proposed changing “my ways” to “his ways” (“Zur Terminologie für das Gerichtsverfahren im Wortschatz des biblischen Hebräisch,” VTSup 16 [1967]: 251-78). But the word can be interpreted appropriately in the context without emendation.

[15:13]  ⁷ tn Grk “in the believing” or “as [you] believe,” with the object “him” supplied from the context. The referent could be God (15:13a) or Christ (15:12).